Why the Sea is Boiling Hot
by Alice Starling
Summary: She is Alice and she is long gone down the rabbit-hole. But it turns out that Violet likes eternal damnation.


The only upside to any of this, she supposes, is that she hasn't touched her razor in weeks.

Violet is standing in her bathroom, gripping the sides of her sink and staring into her mirror, like it were the looking-glass and she were Alice and if only she could were curious enough she could leave this all behind. When she closes her eyes, she imagines some grinning cat who sends her on quests for insanity and tells her that if she loves someone, she should never hurt them. (He tells her that she must be mad, too, because otherwise why would she be here? And he's right, because there must be something twisted in her for her to lay claim to the dark places.)

But this is pointless, because she is already in Wonderland, except it's not wonderful, it's some warped purgatory of a fairy tale. All of her previous angst seems so ridiculous now—there is so much worse in the world than her dark delusions of grandeur, and it has more of a claim on her that she ever imagined. It makes sense, the first few days after she tried to kill herself and Tate saved her, that the razor kept finding its way into her hands; that sharp bite, that draw of copper blood, is real, more real than most things in this house.

She meets Nora at some point during those first three days—Nora with her head bashed in and her sad sweet smile. Nora is old enough to have seen everything and understand at least some of it, which is more than Violet can say for herself, and it's Nora who takes the razor from her.

"This House has taken enough blood. It's taken it from me and Tate and—But if had to _take_ it from us, reach down deep and tear at our souls. Don't you just _give_ It what It wants. You're too strong for that."

As broken as Nora is, Violet thinks that maybe being dead for so long has softened her. Of course, Nora might just be making nice because she thinks she'll be sharing eternal doom with Violet soon enough. Either way, she's always kind to Violet—she doesn't even warn her away from Tate, only tell her that she had better be prepared for what will come. Nora knows morals to stories that Violet has never even heard before.

Although she'll never admit it, part of the reason that she stops with her razor is that fact that the twins make fun of her for it. They are horrible and vicious and apparently Violet knowing that they're already dead gives them free license to terrorize and haunt her. But there's something in their eyes, some childish wistfulness, that makes her wonder what they might have been like if they'd grown up. They are Tweedledee and Tweedledum, all dressed up for battle but the crow came along and swallowed them up, and now they are lost forever.

Occasionally, on the days when they forget that they're dead, Violet lets them have milk and cookies and sends them downstairs to terrorize the monsters in the basement with their sugar high. On the days that Tate remembers that he's dead, he finds this hilarious.

She watches herself in the mirror now, examining her eyes and mouth. She looks the same as she did before. The bathroom mirror is the same as before. Maybe she is on the wrong side of the looking glass; everything looks almost but not quite the same, and everything is different. Her eyes have darkened, maybe, or something inside her has, and she's just seeing shadows of it.

Constance and Moira are downstairs having tea while Vivien is out; they are talking in hushed tones about things Violet doesn't understand and doesn't want to. Occasionally they'll throw a dish at the other; even now Violet hears that tinkling sound of shattering china. They are not friends, or anything like it—they have hated each other so long that they have become companions in purgatory, the ultimate punishment. (Moira sings sometimes while she works, when she works, about stars and bats and other things. Constance drinks tea like it were a religion. They are both trapped in this little tea party of theirs; throwing dishes and making threats until this House burns to the ground.)

"What's wrong?" asks Tate from the doorway, in that fragile innocent way of his. She can hear him scuffing the toes of his hightops along the floor before he makes the decision to step into the bathroom, standing behind her so that he meets her eyes in the mirror.

She turns to face him, bracing herself against the sink. "Everything. It's all just bullshit." And then, because of the way his face trembles and hardens, she adds, "Except us. Me and you—" He moves forward, crushing her to his chest and she murmurs into the soft fabric of his sweater, "The only thing I'm scared of is losing you."

And it's the truth.

Because if Violet is remembering correctly, Alice was never afraid of the Queen of Hearts: thought she was batshit crazy, yes, but took it in that wide-eyed accepting way of little girls lost through rabbit holes. If this is Wonderland, then the House is the Queen—off with their heads and all the rest.

It turns out that Violet likes eternal damnation. It suits her.

Maybe she's not Alice. Maybe she's something else.


End file.
